ThinkNoLimit Marketing Coaching

Here is the consumer insight : All family members are busy. Although the mother has to work, she stills has to take care of the family. So she needs a quick way to make nutritious soup for the family. Swanson's is the solution. The logic of such consumer insight is spelled out in the ad with straightforward selling. And we call this positioning by usage. Is it a good strategy ? One concern is that it's competing against the belief of Chinese that 老火湯 is the best way to take care of the health of the family. To win over this belief, it takes some more support one way or another.

Vitamin C is quite a generic product. How can you make your brand of Vitamin C differentiated from others ? Redoxon just adds an extra ingredient, Zinc to Vitamin C saying it's more effective. Simple, isn't it ? The strategy is simple and effective as the communication is very single-minded. It's a good example yet there is one thing to note. For any marketing strategy, it takes commitment and resources. This Vitamin C + Zinc is better proposition has been communicated for a long time with a lot of money. It's not easy to hold onto one strategy as it can be changed, forgotten or given up due to change of management.

The launch of Windows has generated quite a bit of noise worldwide. It's said to have a lot of advantages and to be better than Vista. A friend has posted this Mac ad on Facebook. It's not only a good laugh but it's also quite thought-provoking. Marketers and companies are sometimes self-defeating and give broken promise. Has Mac given broken promises before ? It probably has.

Promise is here to help anyone in need. It's quite logical to make use of the Promise girl image built over the years as the icon to further project a helpful image. The trouble with this TVC is that it seems to be a copycat of a previous insurance ad. I can't remember which insurance company exactly. Can you ? After all helpful image is quite generic among banks, insurance companies and financial institutions.

Speaking of creative approach, jingle is another popular way of selling. It has the advantage of generating high recall and brand recognition. Adapted from an old song of 小虎隊, this jingle is quite catchy, isn't it ? Say sayonara to allergies. The benefit is sung out loud repeated in the lyrics. Yet one thing important is missing : the brand name. If we are to use jingle to (hard) sell our product, don't forget to blend in the brand name as well as the benefits in the lyrics. 喇叭牌正露丸 and 位元堂養陰丸 are good references.

Although it's not creative per se, demonstration can sometimes be a strong way to convince consumers. This is another classic. If you pay attention to it, you would probably be convinced too. The trouble is whether you would sit right in front of the TV and watch the whole 30" ad. I'm not saying this is a bad selling approach. The fact is all approaches have different shortcomings. This approach just lacks the stopping power.

Tsubu Tsubu is the real pulpy orange juice ! LOL. Minute Maid launched pulpy orange juice and let's ride on the trend created by it ! They have 陳奕迅. Let's get 任賢齊. In order for us to win, we need to highlight we are the real thing, we have more pulps, we are fresher... and let's come up with gimmicky, catchy name : love love 橙. Bingo, we have a winning formula. Don't laugh. These might be what were actually talked about in the boardroom.

Ricola has been around as a herbal candy brand for a long time and it has certain heritage in our minds. Its top of mind awareness is low compared with other pocket candy brands like Extra and Eclipse. On and off, there are some good new products Ricola has put onto the shelves but there has been a lack of marketing communications investment to let consumers know. I bet this TVC is an attempt to uplift the brand awareness and remind consumers it's the original herbal candy from Switzerland. Yet I doubt whether such ad would really be able to revitalize the brand and help generate more sales. What the brand needs is a restart with a winning new product and heavy marketing communications investment on the new product.

I'm out of town from Oct 12 - 19. Daily post resumes on Oct 20. Stay tuned ~

Ok, things may catch you by surprise. Sometimes you may need extra bugs to solve some immediate problems. It tries to make use of a light-hearted scenario to send the message, unexpected twins at the delivery room. There can be so many scenarios to play with. I just don't know why this is picked. Are we back to the 80's ? Nowadays, you would know ahead of the actual delivery with ultrasonic scan. It wouldn't be a surprise at all ...

Halloween Bash has become the flagship event of Ocean Park. It owns Halloween per se, way ahead of Disneyland (as said in one of my posts, Disneyland shouldn't compete for Halloween with Ocean Park and maybe it can own Christmas instead). For Ocean Park, it's getting more difficult to come up with new elements for the bash year after year. Without new excitement, it will get "tried and tired of" where people will not go there more than once. That's not easy to crack or perhaps it can promote more aggressively to the mainland travelers. Yet, the TVCs produced every year are quite enjoyable and fun.

How would you sell a handycam ? The obvious choice is taking the usage route, reminding people of how the handycam can be used in order to trigger the need for it. In the past, handycam was for shooting the life of the new born baby. Now it's for shooting new born doggies. Keeping pets is the trend but we see a lot of new born babies around us this year. If I have to decide, I would still use the baby route as people may find it more worthwhile to invest in a handycam for shooting their babies.

Unfortunate encounters are turned into enjoyments with Kowloon Dairy milk because it's so great tasting. Playing on the sound of gulping down milk, this platform has been used for quite many years. Yet, I'm not too sure about the creative idea as I feel the connection is too weak between great taste and the scenarios in the ads. Can better scenarios be picked ? So that audience can understand and appreciate the joke better ? Maybe. I'll leave it to you to think about it.